5wk old bunnies showing sexual behaviour?

[JimJam]

Hi, I have 8 healthy kits - 4 boys and 4 girls and they are almost 5 weeks old. Today when I let them for a good play, they were properly humping eachother and trying to mate or so it looked like... is this normal behaviour or something I should be concerned about??? I tried to stop this weird behaviour but they kept chasing eachother and mounting eachother...

 

[Preitler]

Well, it happens. Don't see it very often, but when the time, weather etc. is right they get an idea in what they are best at, rabbits being rabbits...

At least it gives an additional clue for sexing - I've only seen males humping at that age.

 

[JimJam]

Thanks! So do I split them (even though they are meant to be with their mum) or leave it? They obviously aren’t sexually mature enough to make babies as they are too young... I had females humping females and males too which really confused me but I checked gender twice and she was definitely a female...

 

[Preitler]

I would leave it for now, it's just social behaviour, establishing the pecking order. But I would seperate them at 8-10 weeks, dosn't sound like they would waste any time getting the next generation started...

 

[JimJam]

Hahaha thanks so much! I was just shocked that they were showing this behaviour so early on and was wondering whether it was something to be concerned about or not. Thank you so much for answering to my question

 

[Bellamy+Lilah]

I had a litter of 9 babies where the boys started doing this at about the same age. The baby girls were so annoyed by this it got to the point they didn't even want to go play in the playpen so I just kept the boys separated from the girls completely and it stopped.

A couple weeks later however, the boy bunnies eventually started humping each other though for hierarchical reasons I imagine.

 

[Preitler]

A couple weeks later however, the boy bunnies eventually started humping each other though for hierarchical reasons I imagine.

I don't think so, does do that for hierachial reasons, bucks either to drive the opponent away or for sexual reasons. While they are too young it's harmless, playing adult behaviour, but imho that changes when they hit puberty in same sex groups.
If they start to fight, it can be pretty ugly. I had a litter like that 3 years ago, never had problems with boys up to 5 months, but in this group humping and tensions started early, at about 14 weeks I had to kill 3 of them, they were either crudly kastrated or trailing intestines from ripped open bellys, it escalated from one day to the next, didn't expect that.

So, I would advice some caution when bucklings show this behaviour, never had that problem since, no idea what caused it.